Chapter 7                                      

        “But I’m not Zorro!” Diego protested, terrified.

        Confused again, Victoria moved to the bed to take a seat on the red and black coverlet as she rasped, “Of course not.”  Breathe.  “I never said you… were.  What does that have… to do with… anything?”

        “Um…”  Diego’s panic subsided.  “With…”  What details should he give?

Diego’s eyes suddenly narrowed in suspicion.  She had said he wasn’t Zorro, but for her to contemplate making love to anybody but Zorro was incredible.  Did she know Zorro’s identity, but was pretending she didn’t?

The little voice in his mind quickly whispered back, Does it matter?

Diego harshly answered himself, Of course it matters!  If Zorro isn’t around for her to make love to, I don’t want to fill in and be her ‘any man’ like I’m her love slave!

At least, he didn’t think he wanted to become Victoria’s love slave.  Though he was more or less her slave in every other sense of the word, ‘love slave’ was a bit personal.  It was akin to becoming her personal male prostitute… wasn’t it?

Could men even be prostitutes?  And would he become a prostitute just by making love with his wife?  Especially if their marriage wasn’t… normal?

“Diego?” Victoria prompted, interrupting his mad scramble of thoughts.

She’s on my bed, Diego incredulously pointed out to himself.  He had dreamt often enough of having Victoria exactly where she was right now, but the fact that she was now lounging on his bed rather than in it gave an entirely new twist to his fantasies.

Diego’s scrambled brain wasn’t able to form an answer to her.  “Um…”

“You said there was… nothing we couldn’t… talk about,” Victoria reminded him, shrugging artlessly .  “Why are you so… afraid?”

“You said that… any man… would do,” Diego croaked.  “I don’t want to be… any man.”

Victoria shrugged.  “I don’t think of you… as ‘any man.’”

“You don’t?”

“You’re the man I… married,” Victoria argued, as if that explained everything.

Diego sent her an aggravated look.  “And we both know why you agreed to marry me.”

Wincing, Victoria confided in a small voice, “No you… don’t.”

“I don’t?”  This was unexpected.  “Can you elaborate?”

Victoria heaved a guilty sigh.  “I thought you… knew.”

Diego’s confusion increased.  “I don’t know anything unless you tell me.”

A frightened look crossed Victoria’s face, but she relaxed just as quickly.  “You’re making… a lot of… assumptions… aren’t you?”

“Assumptions about what?”

Red now suffused her face.  “About my feelings for…”  She gave an irritated sigh.  “You seem so sure… I would rather… be married to… Zorro.”

“Well… wouldn’t you?”

“Zorro isn’t real.  You are.”

That was an argument that hadn’t occurred to him before.  “That’s hardly a reason for having sex with someone!”

Victoria’s brow wrinkled.  “I thought you called it… making love.”

“It is!”

“But which is it, sex or… making love?   And don’t... patronize me!”

“When was I patronizing?”  He settled next to her on the bed, forehead puckered.

Red continued to stain her cheeks.  “A few minutes… ago, when you were… treating me like a... child.”

“I don’t think of you as a child.”

Victoria’s second shrug was petulant.  “Then why… did you just… treat me like one?”

He realized what she was referring to.  “Do you mean when I gave you a kind of… hug… to show you didn’t have to worry… about being pregnant?”

Victoria’s face was now so red, it resembled sunburn.  “Just because you… know something that I… should know but don’t… is no reason to be--”

“I apologize if I seemed patronizing.”  Diego put his hand over Victoria’s in an unconscious display of comfort.  “I certainly didn’t mean to be.”

“You don’t have to be so… formal, either.”

Diego was taken aback.  “I’m formal?”

Victoria smiled wistfully.  “You’ve always been… formal… with me.  It’s almost as if… you won’t let yourself… relax.”

That was something Diego couldn’t dispute.  He was constantly worried he would inadvertently say or do something that would give him away as Zorro.  “You noticed.”

“Of course I… noticed!  I would rather… you talk to me… as a friend than a… nervous, formal--”

“But I can’t help it!  I’m sorry if you think I’m not your friend… which isn’t the case--”

“Diego.”  They sat so close on the bed their thighs rubbed maddeningly together.  “I like you.”

“I like you, too, but what does that have to do with-?”

“You don’t understand.  I like you.”

“Yes, you said that, but I still don’t--”

“It was why I… married you.”

This was news to Diego.  “I thought it was to find a cure.”

A ghostly smile slid across Victoria’s cheeks.  “That was the official…”  She paused, clearly considering her word choices.  “I’m in like with you… Diego.”

His eyebrows rose to his hair.  “In like.  I’m not familiar with that--”

“I more than like you,” she fiercely stated.

“But Zorro… I thought you--”

“I do.  I love…”  Her voice trailed off.  “But he’s not real.  You are.”  Victoria gave him a sharp look.  There was more affection in her eyes than he’d ever seen aimed at him.  “You’re real.  You’re right... here.  And I’m so… very glad.”

Victoria was glad he was here?  Not as Zorro but as Diego?  “I… don’t know what to say.”

Victoria astonishingly pressed her palm against his cheek,  Diego couldn’t have said anything even if he knew what he wanted to say.  “You were always my… first hero… even before all this… began.”

Which Diego instantly didn’t believe.  “But I’m nothing like a hero!”

“Sure you are.”  She let her hand fall to her side.  “You’re the editor… of The Guardian.  You protest what the… Alcalde does… but don’t make him… hate you.”  She shrugged.  “Everybody here… likes you.  I like you.  I have for… years.”

She’d liked him for years?  “Victoria, why-?”

She abruptly leaned forward and kissed him.                                                                                                

His first reaction was surprise.  His second reaction was to think he was dreaming a very delightful dream that made no sense.  “Stop!”  He pulled back.  “This isn’t right.  I--”

She kissed him again.

        This second abrupt move stunned Diego into silence.  She had never before given the slightest impression that she wanted to kiss him… not as Diego!   Then again, Victoria was facing what could possibly be the inexorable ending of her life.  She was clearly tired of waiting for Zorro to put her first for a change.  Diego had put her first since… he was going to think ‘since he married her,’ but in truth, he had been putting her first for a lot longer than that.

        Which could certainly mean that Victoria had always wanted to kiss Diego as well as Zorro.

        That thought was revolutionary.

        Victoria’s kiss was insistent, and the more she insisted, the more Diego couldn’t help but answer, no matter how analytical he tried to be.  He was quickly helpless not to melt into a puddle on the bed.

        But that naturally didn’t end his confusion.  “Victoria, stop for a minute!  Please.  I--”

        “You don’t like… me?”

        “Of course I like you!”  Diego didn’t want to give her the impression that now she was sick, no one of the male persuasion would want her in that way, including him.  “I like you more than…”  He uncharacteristically found himself looking her straight in the eyes.  “Victoria.”  Diego swallowed painfully.  He wanted to tell her everything, all his desires, all his dreams.  But he couldn’t.  Could he?  No, he shouldn’t.  Yes, he should.  No he daren’t.  If not now, then when?

The thoughts crowded together in a swirling maelstrom.  But what could he say, really?  That he loved her?  That he was Zorro?  He wasn’t prepared to reveal his identity just now.  That he would do anything for her?  That he just couldn’t let her die?  That if she did, he would die with her?

        But he said none of these things.  He just looked helplessly at her, wanting to tell her so much, but unable to form a single word.  Finally he gave up, content to reverently kiss her hands.  “I like you too… very much.”

        And he was kissing her then with a fervor that she answered, much to his continued astonishment.  His heart leapt into his throat, skipped a beat, then sluggishly returned to pumping hot blood through his veins.  The thought that she was doing this simply because she was facing death and he was a convenient male ghosted across his mind again, but then he recalled the way she’d said, ‘I like you, Diego,’ connecting that emotion to him, not Zorro, not any man in the pueblo, but to him.

Kissing Victoria felt better than anything!  Surely he’d died and no one had told him?  Surely this had to be heaven?  Surely Victoria was going to change her mind in the next instant.  Surely he would wake up to find this was all a wonderful dream.

If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me up!

It was the last coherent thought Diego had for some time to come.